Election Day is a week away.
It’s likely to be a busy day at the polls, at least compared to 2020 — the number of people voting early by mail-in ballot or in-person has fallen since the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With 31,358 early votes cast by Oct. 28, compared to 50,657 at the same point in 2020 — though early voting ends this Saturday — Richmond General Registrar Keith Balmer is expecting higher Election Day turnout on Nov. 5 than the previous presidential race.
“It's not that they're not going to vote. They are,” he said. It’s his first time leading the office through a presidential election since taking charge in 2021. It and the Richmond Electoral Board have recruited, confirmed and trained more poll workers than previous years in anticipation of busy polls next week.
“Typically, we use about 600 or 700 election officers. For this election, we're going to have almost twice that,” Balmer said.
They’ll be joined by poll observers, who are often recruited by political parties and campaigns but must act as neutral observers on Election Day according to state law. Balmer said those observers will be verified by the city first. These pollwatchers will also be present at local electoral board meetings when the vote counts are certified.
Results in federal races, like the presidency and U.S. Congress, will be called by the Associated Press.
For state and local races that the AP does not usually call, media outlets reporting on a local election use a combination of unofficial results from the state, candidate concessions and editorial consensus to declare unofficial winners. (All results are unofficial until certified.)
But results in the closest elections — like the presidency, Congress and Richmond’s mayoral race — may not be declared for several days, due in part to Virginia’s mail-in ballot system.
To account for the snail-like pace of traditional mail, any ballot postmarked by 7 p.m. on Nov. 5 will be counted as long as it arrives at its local registrar’s office by noon on Friday, Nov. 8.
After that, the results must be certified at the local level by 10 calendar days after the election — which is Nov. 15 this year. The State Board of Elections will convene on the first Monday of December to certify statewide results.
Balmer also said that changes to the way absentee ballots are counted could slow things down. New state rules require the ballots to be sorted into voters’ home precincts, which increases the time it takes to tabulate results after polls close at 7 p.m. on Tuesday. (Note: If you’re in line at your polling station by 7 p.m., you will be permitted to vote.)
“We’ll get it done, but my message to the public is it might take a little while,” Balmer said.
Richmond’s general registrar is currently the subject of an investigation by Richmond Inspector General James Osuna regarding a former employee’s allegations of nepotism and abuse of public funds. His office was also the subject of a Human Resources report earlier this year over the same issues, and reporting by the Richmond Times-Dispatch confirmed Balmer had hired his brother and issued contracts to his wife.
The Virginia Mercury reported in May the state inspector general declined to investigate Balmer because the claims were unrelated to election policy or operations.
Balmer declined to answer questions about the investigation or reporting relating to him, but pointed to a July news release about the HR report.
“Moving forward, we will implement more rigorous hiring practices to ensure fairness and equal opportunity for all employees,” Balmer wrote at the time. “The practice of hiring family members will be discontinued.”
Osuna told VPM News his office doesn’t have a timeline for releasing its report.
